Nova Scotia election round up
Posted May 15, 2017 05:50:50 PM.
Last Updated May 15, 2017 05:51:09 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – (NS-Elxn)
Nova Scotia’s New Democrats say they would run a series of deficits totaling $966 million over the next four years if elected May 30. The platform released today also projects a 2017-18 deficit of $256 million from an injection of spending on health, education and social services. The projected deficit makes most of the same assumptions as the recent Liberal government budget. The Liberals had forecast a $26-million surplus, but that money will be spent on various programs under the New Democrats.
Nova Scotia’s Liberals are taking aim at the N-D-P’s self-described “socialist” leader. The Liberals say Gary Burrill is an “anti-capitalist” who supported the Leap Manifesto, which they say would be dangerous and harmful to the economy. Burrill laughed off the Liberal release, saying he comes from a background of Christian socialism in the tradition of Tommy Douglas and other founders of the New Democratic Party. He says he believes in a society that is egalitarian and helps the poor, but declined to refer to himself as “anti capitalist,” as the news release claims he has in the past.
Premier Stephen McNeil was in Eastern Passage today where he announced the Liberals will invest more than $17 million in Nova Scotia’s agriculture and aquaculture industries if re-elected on May 30. McNeil says a Liberal government will create jobs by spending $9 million over three years on a new fund for the agriculture and seafood industry. The fund will be similar to the Honeycrisp Orchard Renewal Program and will help expand markets. McNeil also says a Liberal government would spend more than $8 million developing the province’s aquaculture industry over three years.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia’s Progressive Conservatives are promising to improve the administration of health care in the province. Party Leader Jamie Baillie says he would usher in site-based management in regional hospitals. He says this will ensure decisions about health care are made closer to home with local input taken into account. Baillie says the single provincial health board created by the Liberal government is not responding to the needs of Nova Scotians outside of Halifax.
